The Marine

While Bill started to speak to the older daughter of the family and describe his plan to get the villagers off the island Yoko was walking around the [Martial Forest] where everything growing out of the ground or hanging off the trees could stab, bash, poke, and bludgeon, looking more or less bored.

With her heightened senses, she could walk through the needled grasses and stoop under the scythe ferns safely. The sword leaves and barbed wire vines were also of no consequence, and instead of focusing so much on survival, she was mostly focused on what could be used as a good potential weapon.

Thinking about it as she walked on, for a long time she had used a war hammer in imitation of Bill and had gotten quite good with it.

However, once she was relatively sure that she would never grow much taller than five feet and had no way of throwing the force of her swings through the air effectively, the weapons’ reach had become a major concern.

After a lot of consideration and after talking to Bill and the others she decided to practice with a spear and, despite rarely ever using the pointy end, found it was an acceptable solution to her problem of reach.

And in this forest, there were spears aplenty.

Coming in every shade of brown and green, growing on the sides of bushes and downwards off branches, she had plenty of options to choose from. Yet be that as it may, as Yoko was crawling over a collapsed [Bladed Tree], nothing had really caught her eye.

With a huff, she looked around, seeing a lot but not seeing anything worth taking. Thanks to her walking speed she had already gotten a good way inside the [Martial Forest] and was becoming put off from the whole endeavor. With that mindset, the girl walked on and thought about other things more than she thought about finding a suitable weapon.

She thought about [New Haven], about the Monkeys, about Bill and the others, about the entire situation that led her here in the first place.

She knew that she wasn’t supposed to come, and it wasn’t that she enjoyed disobeying orders. Only, Yoko believed that Bill was always fussing over her and trying to protect her when she didn’t need it.

In fact, Yoko reasoned, when Bill was her age, he was already leading raids against pirates and commanding groups of Marines in life-or-death situations. Believing in her heart that she was stronger now than he was back then only added to her annoyance when she was told to ‘patrol around [New Haven]’ or to ‘guard the island’.

Thinking along this line of grievances for what seemed like a few hours, she walked past unique scene after another. There were all kinds of weapons growing everywhere and a few of the trees grew much taller and straighter, shaped like massive s quarterstaff rather than [Bladed Trees].

Life was short in this [Martial Forrest]. The corpses of long weasels, poisonous spiders, monkey cadets, and other creatures were only matched in number by the large fallen trees and broken grasses.

Coming into a wide area that was relatively clear of anything besides patches of [Needlegrass], Yoko found a single narrow tree growing high into the sky that was surrounded on all sides by fallen trees of the same kind.

The broken trunks surrounding the tall [Quarterstaff Tree] had fallen in a clockwork pattern, making the entire scene look like an exotic sundial. Shrugging her shoulders, Yoko looked up at the narrow tree that stood a hundred meters into the air and walked over to stand beside it.

Obviously too long for her to use, she couldn’t help but notice that the broken stalks of the trees on the ground were the same size as the standing tree, and seeing this, she said suddenly: “You know, I don’t like failing either, but come on, if you keep breaking why would try doing the same thing over and over again!”

Of course, not thinking a tree could understand her, Yoko gave it a solid slap and turned to walk away until she heard a loud…

*CRACK*

Turning around quickly, she saw that the tree was dangerously swaying and after watching wide-eyed for several minutes, there was another *CRACK* followed by hundred meters of narrow tree falling to the ground, coincidentally filling an empty spot of ground.

Still watching somewhat dumbfound, as she hadn’t even tried to slap the tree that hard, there was yet another *CRACK* followed by a *THWONGGG* when amazingly a much smaller version of the tall [Quarter Staff] tree completely broke free from the fallen trunk, sending the now collapsed tree even further way.

Looking at the scene that had just happened in front of her eyes, Yoko then started laughing and still speaking to no one said: “Let me guess, you’re going to try that again!”

Walking over, she gave the new sprout a much harder slap, and then had to dodge when it *THWONGG*’d back, almost hitting her.

Deciding in the moment that it was actually pretty fun, Yoko spent the next little while slapping and dodging from the [Quarter Staff] sprout, which stood about eight-feet-tall.

“You know.” Said she when she was getting ready to leave, mostly talking to herself because it would have been crazy to talk to a tree: “I have a way that you could grow taller and wider than any other tree in the whole world!”

After she said this, she thought she saw the tree sway a little bit and inspired by that she reached into her Coat of Justice, pulling out the [Length-Length Fruit].

“You see this thing?” she said then describing the Devil Fruit and finished by saying that if it wanted the power, it only had to be her weapon, to which the tree swayed again.

‘Hmm…’ Yoko thought.

If at first this had been just something to do for fun, now it was an interesting possibility.

She had planned to give Bill the [Length-Length Fruit] and suggest it be used for Akisu or one of the others, but if she could make it into her weapon then that would be much better.

After everything Yoko had seen in her life, while she did value the strength of her comrades, unlike Bill she believed that a singular personal power was the best deterrent and would sacrifice someone else’s potential for her own benefit.

Why were the Pirate Emperors allowed to exist? In Yoko’s opinion, the strengths of their crews were an afterthought compared to the overwhelming power of their Emperors themselves.

And so, everything went.

Marines weren’t killed, and islands weren’t protected due to the average strength of those Marines or island soldiers. It was the powerful outliers who ensured Justice that made the evildoers fear the consequences of their actions.

With this mindset, she stood there looking at the [Quarterstaff Tree] and [Devil Fruit], before shrugging her shoulders and saying: “Well, nothing good comes for free!”

Walking over, she grabbed the sprout by its trunk and pulled with all her strength, ripping it up from the ground and revealing small roots.

“This was all you were holding onto the ground with?!” She started with a laugh and then said: “No wonder you kept falling over!” Besides the [Quarterstaff Trees] tiny roots, it was straight as an arrow with two small leaves growing out of side of the top.

Fumbling around with it for a split second, Yoko placed the Devil Fruit on the roots, and when nothing happened, she poked a hole in the fruit and shoved them inside.

The effect was instant, turning the Devil Fruit into a dried husk, the quarterstaff sprout grew a dozen meters rapidly. Hollering and banging on it to stop, it took several minutes until the girl had subdued the out-of-control sprout, and then with an intention, willed it to shrink back down.

Being a tree, the quarterstaff didn’t have a fully formed conscious but was very much alive. Placing the roots on the ground, Yoko willed them to burrow deep and for the two leaves to grow.

Holding it there for a little bit, she formed a connection to the weapon and when she suspected it had absorbed enough nutrients, she shrank the roots and two leaves down so small that they weren’t noticeable and lifted it up.

Holding it in two hands like she had her spear, she swung it around, made it shrink and extend, made it expand and contract, before finally willing it to shrink down to the size of a hair stick which she used to hold up a quickly wrapped bun.

Though it was only a sprout now, Yoko knew that in time the [Quarterstaff Tree] would grow naturally taller, stronger, heavier, and with the help of the [Length-Length Fruit] it would never collapse again.

Thinking all of this was good, the girl happily jumped through the air back towards the Monkey Troopers, Minks, and other her followers.

While Yoko had finally found her weapon, one unique in all the world, Bill had organized a covert operation whereby the villagers would be informed of their chance to leave Merveille and go somewhere safe.

Because he had to move fast, he left Yoko alone and went to scout Shiki’s Headquarters and jumping through the air, he finally arrived at an enormous harbor.

Narrowing his eyes, at a glance he counted fifty ships – most of them large frigates – and figured if each of these ships were fully crewed, that would mean there were at least 10,000 pirates under Shiki’s banner already.

This would be a problem for the future, Bill thought, but for now these ships would help his immediate goals.

There turned out to be a scant 1,200 people left in the village, and assuming they all left with him, that meant he would need to steal five ships.

Of course, those starving women and children wouldn’t have the strength to sail, but Bill figured with the Marines he had it would be more than possible once they landed on the ocean bellow.

Eying for the most suitable vessels, Bill didn’t need to think about how they were going to leave the island – he had already seen such a thing happen before years ago at Clockwork Island.

That was, they were going to parachute down just like how he had seen Monkey D. Luffy do back then.

After he had selected the vessels he planned on capturing, which were the ones with the strongest looking hulls that would also lend themselves to attach parachutes, Bill moved to the next part of the plan which was where they would hide the townspeople until they were ready to make their move.

With [Presence Erasing], Bill made his way into the bottom level of Shiki’s fortress.

Still being careful because he didn’t know when he could run into the [Flying Pirate], Bill moved silently based on the rough schematics given to him by [Ever], the older daughter of the woman he had met earlier that day.

With his eyes opened wide, he checked one hall after the next, the townspeople would need to be very close to the harbor so they could make their escape.

Bill planned to set the beasts on the pirates and turn the fortress into a battlefield, but accounting for Shiki’s strength, he would need to be very quick about it. After all, in the mayhem he would need to both move the people and recover live samples of the IQ Plants.

After some time, it was now getting dark outside, and he had found several storage rooms that he figured would serve their purposes.

Thinking it was time to finally leave the place, he heard a commotion in the direction of the bar and trusting his instincts, went to see what was going on.

The bar in Shiki’s Headquarters was a massive multi-storied building. Sticking to the shadows and corners, Bill passed by hundreds of murderers and other unsavory characters.

He did recognize some of the men he passed by their [Wanted] posters but didn’t pay much mind when, seeing the bartender on the third level, Bill looked shocked and almost started laughing.

The bartender was a man who Bill had met several years ago during a shipwreck he experienced not long after joining the [Science Division]. The man was a dirty scallywag then and didn’t look any better now.

He was either a lying pirate or unfortunate trader, either way, his name was [Hollandaise].